[tornado33]

Hi all
Houghy has kindly lent me his cooled , modded 350D camera, and it takes great images, but just now I really tested it by dong a staggering 45 minute dark at ISO 1600. Sensor temp was 5 degrees.
At ISO 1600, a shot even 1/2 as long would see the image covered with coloured pixels, quite bright in levels. But take a look at this. Yes its a 45 minute dark frame, only amp glow and some hot pixels are visible. Even on a full res version theres some more hot pixels but the vast majority are black!

If Cannon would make available monochrome versions of this sensor, that is with clear instead of coloured lenslets on the pixels, they would have a sensor that would eat anything SBIG and others for breakfast. If it was mounted into a custom body like a dedicated astro camera, single stage Peltie cooling, going, say 20 or so degrees below ambient wound see breathtaking low noise images. Give it 2 stage cooling and Id say youd pick up more cosmic rays than thermal noise.

If I was one of the big astro camera makers like Sbig Id negotiate with Canon to make a large run of monochrome 10 megapixel (400D) chips and the basic processing /control hardware, but with 16 bit processing then mount it in a body designed for thermoelectric cooling, usb2 support etc, then sell it for the same price as a 400D camera. Id either mount the amplifier chip away from the sensor or better yet have it turn off during imaging (its only needed for readout), eliminating the amp glow. Overnight Id corner the market, selling 10 MP astro cameras for a fraction of the price of others, with much lower thermal noise to boot!
Scott